The play by Stanisław Grochowiak is a contemporary Polish drama classic. Alf, the main character, lost his hairdressing salon, and then he lost his family because of alcoholism. Now Alf has a doll clinic and is renovating old toys and antique dolls. The play consists of two acts. In the first act Alf is struggling with long-lasting alcohol addiction. He is visited by his ex-wife, a friend from olden times, the owner of the apartment and others. One of the guests is unusual –Bis is a mysterious figure existing in the borderland between the real world and the fantastic world. He might be the devil, he might be Alf’s alter ego –he certainly is a hallucination that always appears when Alf is in delirium. In the second act Alf is sober; his birthday party is taking place. At some point, everyone is drinking alcohol, including Alf’s therapist. Being under enormous pressure, Alf falls into a fit of frenzy, chases everyone away and returns to his addiction – he begins to drink. Soon afterwards he is visited by Bis, who has been waiting for this moment. Alf dies. This dark drama is a psychological study of the last months of an alcoholic’s life. If I could continue working on this drama, first of all I would like to present the impact of addiction on the perception of reality. I am afraid that it is impossible to fully understand this self-destructive drive, and my intention is to observe…to observe people’s behaviour and on that basis to build… strong realistic motivations for the characters.
I have prepared the reading as part of the Drama Lab (Laboratorium Dramatu).
